


December 5: baby, it's cold inside

by dizzy



Series: 2017 (the darkest timeline) daily fic advent [5]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-05
Updated: 2017-12-05
Packaged: 2019-02-11 05:37:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12928632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy/pseuds/dizzy
Summary: prompt:we got stuck in a fridge





	December 5: baby, it's cold inside

Phil likes cakes. 

He likes cakes a lot. 

He likes cakes a lot and he’s got the kind of friendly face that makes elderly women pinch his cheek and whisper in his ear where the cakes are kept. 

*

Dan likes Phil. 

He likes Phil a lot. 

He likes Phil enough that when it’s been ten minutes and he hasn’t seen Phil, he has to wander about looking for him. 

*

“Dan-” Phil says. His voice is far more panicked than need be for getting caught raiding the desserts trays waiting to go out by the catering staff. “Did you shut the door?” 

As fantasting timing would have it, the door - which actually hadn’t been entirely shut - thuds closed with an awful kind of finality. 

*

“This is like something out of a bad episode of Friends. Why do these even make doors that lock from the inside? This makes no sense. You also make no sense. Why couldn’t you just wait a fucking hour for them to bring the cakes around? I’m putting you on a no sugar diet when we get home,” Dan says. “This is never happening again.” 

He’s rubbing his arms, trying to ward the chill away. It’s not a freezer, at least; they won’t turn into icicles or worry about losing any appendages to frostbite. 

But it’s still cold. It’s cold and their phones have no service in here and this is not the kind of excuse he wanted to miss Phil’s fancy outdoor family holiday party with it’s fancy catering and everyone in fancy clothes. 

“Sorry,” Phil says, and the quiet shame in his voice, the way he doesn’t joke back, makes Dan bristle. He’s used to this; he hates when people make Phil bad, he hates especially when he makes Phil feel bad. These moments when that feeling of frustration at himself resides in the same place and time as frustration at Phil are the worst kind of internal conflict. 

Dan sighs. “Or we could just not come to any more fucking holiday parties. I knew it was a bad idea. Is that a chocolate mousse?” 

“What?” Phil looks over. “Oh. I think so. I haven’t actually had any.” 

“You’ve been stuck in here ten minutes and you haven’t tried anything?” Dan asks, laughing. He talks over and picks up a little plate with a miniature fancy decorated mousse on it. “Share?” 

“I realized the door locks from the inside as soon as I came in,” Phil says. “I didn’t - I wasn’t hungry anymore after that.” 

Dan bites into it while Phil is talking, licking his lips to get at the silky chocolate clinging to them. He hands it to Phil, who takes it and finishes it off. “You know what the worst part of this is,” Dan says. 

“What?” Phil is distracted, staring down at his hands. 

Dan picks up another dessert - a selection of three petit fours - and takes it to sit down beside Phil. “They’re definitely going to think we’re fucking.” 

Phil laughs, almost a barking sound. It’s his caught-off-guard laugh. “Dan!” 

“What? You know they are. Watch Martyn not even come to look for us. He’ll think he’s doing us a favor.” Dan looks at the door, mentally willing Martyn to prove him wrong. “Imagine if we did, though.”

“Dan.” Phil seems to realize that Dan is trying, in his own way, to distract and cheer Phil up. “We’re not having sex in a fridge. It’s too cold.” 

“Are you really cold?” Dan asks, reaching out and grabbing Phil’s hand. They’ll have plenty of warning if someone starts to open the door. Phil’s fingers actually are freezing. “Do we need to strip naked and share body warmth? I heard that was the best thing to do when you’re freezing.”

“Dan.” Phil’s smiling a bit a how ridiculous Dan is being. “You saw that on The X-Files. And it didn’t work for Mulder, either.” 

“Ugh, fine. You got me.” Dan looks around. There’s not actually much to offer any kind of entertainment. “This is a good excuse not to have to listen to your aunt tell me more about her new hat range.” 

“My aunt’s hats are lovely,” Phil says. 

“They are,” Dan agrees. “But I still don’t give a shit how many different colors of yarn she’s bought.” 

“Oh,” Phil says. “Well, that is boring. I usually just tell her that I’ll take a picture with her to make her be quiet.” 

“Imagine if I did,” Dan says, laughing to himself. “That’d get her some views.” 

“It’d be nice, actually,” Phil says. “If there were pictures of you with my family.” 

And - oh. There’s something. 

Dan always feels caught off guard by moments like this. He feels like he knows Phil so well, but then Phil will say something and his voice will go that certain way and Dan will remember how sometimes he’s actually a bit of a clueless idiot still. 

“We can take pictures,” Dan says. “Maybe not like, with your aunt for her instagram. But if you want to like - with your family. I’d do that. Your mum and dad. And like, Martyn and Cornelia…” 

“Yeah?” Phil asks. “We don’t have to. I just-” 

“We should,” Dan says, because the more he thinks about things like this the more he realizes how many restrictions he’s putting in his own path sometimes and how many of those are holdovers from years when he let himself be afraid of everything. “I want to. It’ll look good. You know. Hanging. Places.” 

Phil doesn’t say anything, but Dan can tell he’s pleased. 

He picks up one of the petit fours and holds it out. “Bite?” 

“Feeding it to me, then?” Phil asks. 

Dan tapes it against Phil’s full bottom lip until Phil opens his mouth. He eats it all, teeth scraping against Dan’s thumb. It’s more erotic in thought than action, but Dan sits a little closer and there’s a bit more warmth between them. 

*

“They’re going to have to come get the desserts at some point,” Phil says. “Won’t they?” 

Dan is up and pacing. The temperature is starting to get to him now. It can’t be more than five degrees, and even though he’s got a suit jacket on he’s feeling it. 

“Unless they just assume you’ve eaten them all,” Dan says. 

“We could eat them all,” Phil suggests. They’ve already got a tidy little pile of mini plates. “We’ll need calories to keep our fat stores up, so we don’t freeze to death.” 

“You’ve definitely already worked out an apocalypse type scenario in your head, haven’t you?” Dan asks. “At least tell me, which of us succumbs to cannibalism first?” 

“Dan. Trust me. It’s better if you don’t know,” Phil says. 

*

The door opens with a heavy scrape. “The freezer! I knew it,” Cornelia says, barely visible behind the caterer who actually opened the door. “Martyn, I win the bet.” 

“You bet on us?” Dan says, pushing his way out without even making sure Phil’s behind him. He wants to get as far away as he can from the bewildered caterer who probably wants to yell at them. “What did you bet?” 

He finally stops, just on the fringe of where the party is happening, away from the main setup of lights. He checks for Phil finally, who looks exactly as pale as he always does except this time he’s shivering. 

“We couldn’t figure out where you’d gone,” Martyn says, jogging to catch up. “My guess was that you’d locked yourself in the cloakroom. Cornelia said it had to do with food.” 

“Why would we be on the cloakroom?” Phil asks. Then, before anyone even needs to answer: “ _Oh_. Well. Food. We wanted food. She wins.” 

“I mean, it could have been both-” Dan starts to say. 

“ _Food_ ,” Phil says again, giving him a stern glare. 

“Heaven forbid your brother thing we have an adventurous sex life,” Dan mutters. 

Martyn looks queasy. “So. I’m glad those cakes were good. Are there any left? I hope there’s some left.” 

“You don’t deserve any cakes,” Phil says with a glare. 

*

Phil’s mum laughs so hard she nearly spills her wine. “You know, he did that once as a little boy, except it was a cupboard and not a freezer. That was near Christmas time as well, and I’d taken to hiding the marshmallows in the back of a cupboard so this little rotten one here wouldn’t eat them all up.

“Relatable,” Dan says.

“But he found them, of course. Helped himself right to them, but he let the cupboard shut behind him and those doors got stuck sometimes and he was a tiny thing. He wasn’t strong enough to push it back open. He was crying his little eyes out when I found him, but he still finished every last one of those marshmallows.” 

Phil’s got his face in his hands, cheeks red and groaning in embarrassment. “Mum! Why do you always do this!” 

If they were home and Phil made that face and laughed like that, Dan would kiss his temple and pull Phil to his side. He has the phantom urge to move anyway, to do it even though people are around. 

But Phil’s got a big family and some of them still whisper questions, so Dan stays a comfortable distance away and tries to let his eyes do the things he can’t. (Yet.) 

*

They stand together for a picture, six people crowded around the fancy decorated tree. There’s over half a dozen different takes and in almost all of them Dan’s smile is a little stiff and Phil’s fringe is a little messy but Phil’s mum agrees to send them all over anyway. 

*

Phil likes cakes. 

Dan likes Phil. 

And both of them really, really like the nice warm bath they agree that they have fully earned.

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on [tumblr](http://alittledizzy.tumblr.com)! or [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/alittledizzy)! or don't! your choice! happy holidays!


End file.
